Psyche Machina

Social chatbots and emotion regulation in daily life: Examining parasocial interaction and resilience among Chinese individuals with self-reported depressive symptoms

Acta psychologica, 2026

L4of 5
Design
Cross-sectional survey
Risk of bias
Some concerns
Sample
n = 488
AI type
Companion / social AI apps
Outcomes
Mood
Authors' conclusion
“In addition, (d) psychological resilience moderated the association between parasocial interaction and emotion regulation, such that the positive association was stronger at higher levels of resilience. These findings highlight the potential role of social chatbots in everyday emotional support and offer implications for the design of AI-based tools that facilitate emotional disclosure and adaptive self-regulation.”Quoted verbatim from the abstract.

Draft grade. Level and risk of bias were assigned by our agent and await expert review. How we grade

Read the paper →DOI 10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.107017